Clock ticks on market move

TRIB TOWN • Time, money limits may curb redesign of weekend icon

By Anna Johns

The Portland Tribune, May 29, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (3 Reader comments)

The design firm of Walker Macy is working with the city on ideas for the redevelopment of Ankeny Plaza, Saturday Market and Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

COURTESY OF WALKER MACY

Designers from Walker Macy, an urban design firm in Portland, are rushing to create a final proposal for the new location of Portland Saturday Market.

Their deadline is June 13, the date of an open house for the public to discuss the project.

“We’re on a really tight time frame,” said Sandra Burtzos, project manager for Portland Parks & Recreation.

The process is being rushed because the market must move by early 2008, when Mercy Corps intends to begin construction on its new home in the Skidmore Fountain Building.

The nonprofit group’s plans call for expanding the building into one of the parking lots where Saturday Market currently operates on weekends. Other pressure on the market comes from the University of Oregon, which is opening a satellite campus in the White Stag building, just north of another Saturday Market location in a parking lot under the Burnside Bridge. The university will use the lot for parking seven days a week.

Because of the sudden rush of development, a city study concluded that Saturday Market would have to split in two, with a handful of vendors remaining in Ankeny Plaza and the rest moving across Naito Parkway to Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

The parks bureau and the Portland Development Commission are spending about $6.2 million on construction of a new site for Saturday Market and other improvements.

All three of Walker Macy’s design proposals put Saturday Market on a raised platform just south of the Burnside Bridge on the waterfront.

“It’s an urban space that has to be equally as attractive when there’s Saturday Market occurring and when there’s no Saturday Market in the area,” said Mauricio Villarreal, a project manager for Walker Macy.

Market to rise above

Villarreal said his design team focused on three main functions of the space: a bustling market, a family destination and a north-south connection with the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade. Each design option puts Saturday Market on a platform that would run parallel to the Willamette River and end with a set of stairs opening up to a large plaza with some sort of fountain or water feature.

“The stairs provide a place for people to sit and watch their children play in the fountain or watch an event,” Villarreal said.

The differences in design vary only slightly, in size of the platform, design of the rain cover for Saturday Market vendors, and type of water feature. One option calls for a fountain where water shoots up out of the ground, similar to the popular Salmon Street Springs fountain farther south in Waterfront Park.

“On the weekends, we envision the fountain running and families and children playing,” Villarreal said.

Another option would put a reflecting pool up on the raised platform, to be drained each weekend for Saturday Market activities. And the third option would place a shallow wading pool at the southern foot of the Saturday Market platform.

1 | 2 Next Page >>

Facebook	Digg	Del.icio.us
Newsvine	Stumbleupon	Reddit